1. Technical Field
This invention relates to a portable levee system and portable levee system bag. More particularly, this invention relates to both a trapezoidal-shaped continuous bag that is fed from a container to the ground and receives fill material, and a method for employing same to provide a levee as well as the levee system bag used.
2. Relevant Art
Common military-issue style sandbags have been used for years in flood control. A typical, but labor-intensive and time consuming, use of such sandbags is to utilize shovels to scoop up sand and deposit the sand into manually held open sandbags. One current device which utilizes such military sandbags includes a bin with three openings formed in the bottom to allow simultaneous filling of three regular sand bags at once. Sand is dumped in the bin and three users hold empty bags under the openings to receive the sand as it flows down through the openings. Another present device is a conveyor that attaches behind a dump truck. It feeds sand out, left and right, to chutes underneath and into bags manually held in place for filling.
Over 20,000,000 conventional sandbags were filled by hand and emplaced as levees along riverbanks during the spate of river floods which occurred in the 1990""s. The use of hand-filled sandbags is inefficient when done on such a necessarily large scale. Augmenting such hand-filling operations were untold numbers of bulldozers, bob-cats, and the like, in order to provide sand and other fill material. Such a major commitment of resources in manpower and equipment was still not enough to stem the flow of river water through mid-America. Thus, what is needed is a portable levee system which features a bag that can be quickly and efficiently emplaced, is easy to use, and is sturdy.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a portable levee system for use in flood control.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a portable levee system including a continuous collapsible bag stored in a container and dispensed for filling.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a portable levee system including bags which can be continuously dispensed and filled from a moving vehicle.
It is an even further object of the present invention to provide a portable levee system including a trailer for dispensing a continuous bag, and an auger for picking up and depositing fill material into the bag along a path of travel of the dispensing trailer.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a method of making a portable levee.
More particularly, and in accordance with the structure and the method of operation hereinafter discussed, the present invention provides a levee which can be constructed in a fraction of the time required to build an equivalently-sized levee utilizing current emergency levee construction systems.
Specifically, the present invention provides a continuous bag design which includes lateral webs formed therein to hold the bag to a preselected geometric shape. A preferred bag shape is trapezoidal, whereby the bag has a largest dimension at a base when viewed from an end. Guide sleeves containing a rope of sufficient diameter to keep the guide sleeve in the bag guides are sewn along two upper edges of the bag and fed into a pair of bag guides, each bag guide having two rails, thereby holding the bag in position for filling. The continuous bag is stored in a container, either on a roll, or compressed therein, accordion-style. In either storage method, a dispenser, for example a trailer, dispenses the bag from the container and onto the ground. While the bag is being paid out, available fill material, such as, for example, sand, gravel, or rocks is deposited into the bag. One embodiment of the present invention relies on the use of a bob-cat, or similar loader to lift and deposit fill material into the bag. However, a preferred embodiment utilizes an auger system including a chute that transports fill material via the auger system into an opening defined by the two upper edges and formed at a top of the bag. The fill material is deposited onto a grate or screen which is suspended over the opening whereby the grate sifts the fill material, as desired, in order to provide a uniform consistency of fill material. The auger system operates in conjunction with a dump truck, trailer, or other transport means for delivering fill material to the dispenser.
Although the present invention can be deposited on-site and remain stationary, a preferred dispenser is a wheeled or tracked vehicle such as, for example, a trailer or a self-propelled vehicle. Likewise, a preferred auger system is wheeled or tracked. Alternatively, the auger system can be lowered onto a support surface, such as, for example, the ground, whereby the auger system brings fill material up to the bag from the ground directly in its path and alongside the path of the dispenser. The latter option is most readily foreseen when filling sandbags near a river or stream bank, and soft mud/dirt along the bank is to be used for filling the bags. A typical base dimension for the bag is six feet across, but any dimension can be used.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following written description and the figures relating thereto.